Hoops legend pays visit to shot-swatter from days in college

A 1960 newspaper photograph captured a highlight of
Dave Terre’s basketball career: His hand on top of a shot just out of the hand
of Cincinnati’s Oscar Robertson.

Terre was a 6-10 senior at Drake. The Big O was the best player in
basketball.

Only two years later, in fact, Robertson would average a triple-double for the Cincinnati Royals, the only
NBA player ever to do so.

Terre wasn’t in Robertson’s league, but neither was anyone else. The Big O
redefined the guard position and remains the purest all-around player in the
history of the game.

Terre was good enough to play in the North/South All-Star Game after his
senior year, and he was named to Drake’s All-Decade team of the ’60s. No one in
Washington, Mo., would have guessed it back when a gangly, awkward Terre
couldn’t make his high school B team as a freshman or sophomore.

Terre got his business degree and made a 47-year career with Wilson Sporting
Goods. Played briefly in Europe and in the old American Basketball League and
won a silver medal and two golds for Team USA in the International Senior
Olympics.

He moved to the Dallas area in 1970 while with Wilson and, for the most part,
has lived here ever since. Even was elected to City Council in The Colony, where he still serves.

A great life for someone whose goal was once to have enough to eat.

For Terre’s birthday recently, a friend, Tom Teague, threw him a party at
Maggiano’s in Plano. Blew up the news photo of Terre blocking Robertson’s shot
and prominently displayed it. Teague had always kidded his old pal about the
picture. Told him he must have Photoshopped himself into the shot.

As it happens, the picture’s authenticity was confirmed by a party guest: The
Big O himself.

Teague had flown him in from Cincinnati for the celebration.

“He came in and hugged me and we spent a nice evening together,” Terre
said.

They talked about tough times starting out. Too poor to afford a basketball
growing up in a segregated housing project in Indianapolis, Robertson learned to
play basketball with tennis balls and rags wrapped with rubber bands. Terre’s
father moved his young family off the farm after his wife died when Dave, the
youngest, was just 2. Dave started working odd jobs at 9 and has had one job or
another ever since.

“We both said that, without basketball in our lives,” Terre said, “nothing
else would have come of it.”

Of course, they shared another bond, too. The Big O included it in his
autograph.

If Jason Hatcher didn’t call out Tony Romo after practice for an audible that resulted in a
pick six, he should have. For all the undue criticism Romo takes, the fairest is
his propensity to kill a play, bog down the pace and allow the defense to settle
in. Football’s best trend is fast-forward, not putting a play on pause. … How do
we know the hurry-up works? Even Nick Saban, who has lobbied against it, now says Alabama
must pick up the pace. Used to claim it would lead to more injuries. Now admits
there’s no time to line up his defense, as Texas A&M has proven twice. …
Jurickson Profar’s rookie season didn’t come off like most
hoped, but give the 20-year-old this: He has a flair for the dramatic. Homered
in his first MLB at bat, and Thursday became the youngest Ranger to hit a
walk-off homer. … If the Rangers don’t re-sign A.J. Pierzynski, Yu Darvish might not miss him, but I will. Talks like he
swings, meaning nothing is out of reach. … Considering that Dirk Nowitzki has encased himself in a hyperbaric chamber
to rehabilitate an injury and Tweeted a fairly creepy picture of himself inside
a Bod Pod to measure body fat, I’m guessing he won’t be cremated. … Nice touch
by Yankee skipper Joe Girardi, sending Andy Pettitte and Derek Jeter out to get Mariano Rivera for his final walk off a mound. The greatest
reliever ever, Rivera was all class. His manager showed some, too. … Proving
once again its resolve to fight for its right to be hypocritical, the NCAA says
it will go to the Supreme Court to keep from paying former players in the video
game lawsuit. EA Sports, which produced the games featuring likenesses of
players past and present, has already caved. The NCAA’s motto should read,
“Everybody’s getting rich but the players.” . . . SMU’s Gene Phillips, Texas’ Jay Arnette, Texas Tech’s Rick Bullock and Frank Broyles, the emperor of Arkansas, among induction
class into the Southwest Conference Hall of Fame on Oct. 28 at Dallas’
Doubletree, Campbell Centre. For tickets to the gig benefitting the Texas Sports
Hall of Fame, call 1-800-567-9561. … Hey, who had three games in the Miles Austin pull-a-hammy-pool?

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About Kevin Sherrington

Kevin Sherrington, a general sports columnist, was born in Dallas and grew up in Houston. He has worked at five newspapers in Texas. He has worked at The Dallas Morning News since 1985. He had no idea his career would come to blogging.